I've been on a
Cadfael binge recently so when I found out that one of the finest surviving medieval monasteries in the UK wasn't that far from home, I just had to go. Cleve Abbey in Washford, Somerset is a small Cistercian abbey that was established in 1198 and was converted into a house following the Dissolution of the Monasteries.
Mum and I went down on an overcast day, though it brightened up by the afternoon. To get to the abbey you have to go over a little bridge that crosses the Washford river. It was a lovely little river, fast-flowing with clear water and there were lots of damselflies including this young male beautiful demoiselle (its name, but also a perfect description),
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| Beautiful demoiselle (Calopteryx virgo) |
The first building we see is the gatehouse,
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| The gatehouse |
According to the information board it's the most complete in the country, despite being remodeled twice,
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| Remodeling in the gatehouse |
The buildings are remarkably complete,
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| The abbey |
However, the church has been razed and now just a few foundations remain. This does, however, allow you to see the night door that led from the dormitory to the church. It meant that the monks didn't have to go outside to attend the nighttime services.
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| Door from the dormitory to the church (the one on the right, halfway up the wall) |
The groundfloor door led to the sacristy, where religious vestments and religious objects were kept. It was clearly once highly decorated and faint remains of the painted walls are still visible,
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| Wall art in the sacristy |
Apparently painting the outline of brickwork on the plasterwork was the medieval height of fashion, a bit like that faux brick wallpaper I remember from my childhood. Next to the sacristy was the Chapter House which, as any reader of
Cadfael knows, is where the monks get together to discuss the running of the abbey and listen to religious readings (and where Cadfael manages to get a few sneaky naps on occasion). I was surprised by the room as the roof was quite low and imposing.
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| Chapterhouse |
Here too were the faint remains of paintwork,
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| Faint traces of red paintwork beside the stone 'beams' |
The rest of the ground floor rooms weren't as well preserved and some had been extensively remodeled. Guest quarters had even been converted into stables! Upstairs things were a bit better. Three rooms had somehow survived the passage of over 800 years and the first we visited was the dormitory. This was where the monks slept and was essentially a big hall. It was originally open, like hospital wards used to be, but partitions were later put up to give the monks more privacy. The floor has clearly been redone but the walls, roof and windows are all still largely medieval.
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| Dormitory |
What really struck me was how cold it must have been, particularly in winter. The big draw of the dormitory is the windows. Or more precisely the tiles around the windows,
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| Tiles around a window |
I was surprised as how higgledy-piggledy they were. I later realised that most of them hadn't been found in situ but had instead been 'restored' in the mid-20th century. It seems the restorers weren't too fussed about which tile went there, resulting in frustratingly mismatched patterns.
The tiles really were beautiful and in extraordinary condition,
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| One of the tiles |
The little museum gave an explanation of how they were made. Thick red clay is shaped into square tiles and then the desired shape is stamped into them. White clay is then pushed into the stamp and the top is sliced off to give a clean surface. This is then fired then glazed. It was a really simple method but resulted in some beautiful patterns.
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| A set of tiles restored in their original layout |
The next surviving upstairs room was the refectory. It was a replacement for a ground-floor refectory that had become outdated and was razed by the monks. In doing so they covered the original floor which survived undetected until modern times. It was uncovered and left to the elements for tourists for several decades before it was realised that maybe wasn't the best idea ever, and it's now under cover. The tiles here are outstanding. A lot of them show heraldic symbols of the main benefactors of the abbey.
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| Refectory tiles |
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| Heraldic tile in the refectory |
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| Heraldic tiles in the refectory |
The replacement refectory is a rather grand affair. The vaulted ceiling is edged with angels,
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| Refectory ceiling |
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| One of the angels |
However, the most well-preserved room is currently unable to be visited, to ensure its continued preservation, but you can peer in through a window. The reason for this caution is the wall painting that takes up most of one wall,
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| Painted room |
They think the room was used by the clerks of the Abbot. According the information board the painting dates from the 15th century and shows a rich bearded man praying on a bridge. He's flanked on one side by a lion and St Catherine (of wheel fame) and on the other side by a dragon. It's apparently a depiction of a morality tale from the Gesta Romanorum, which was a popular book at the time.
While all this was fantastic, my favourite part was not a room, but a corridor. Or more precisely a wall of a corridor. It was a corridor past the painted room and it was clearly a place where the monks got to let their hair down a bit as the wall is covered in graffiti. It's everyday scribblings. I can't help but marvel how it was allowed in such a controlled environment. The painted room and refectory were part of the 15th century remodel and I wonder if maybe this corridor was the last thing to get done and it just became accepted that, much like walls are fair game before they're re-papered or painted, this corridor became a place where people could scrawl what they liked until they finally got round to redecorating it.
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| Someone called 'Thomas' wanted to be remembered |
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| Flowers |
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| Plants |
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| Monk |
I really loved Cleve Abbey. It was small but charming and its preservation is remarkable, though most of it seems to be a result of benign neglect. I figured that would be my only medieval foray of the trip but a couple of days before I left mum and I found ourselves on our way to Lacock Abbey in Wiltshire. The abbey was a medieval nunnery and is just outside the village of Lacock which you have probably seen if you've ever watched any BBC period dramas. It's been used in
Pride and Prejudice,
Downton Abbey and
Cranford, amongst many other films and TV programmes.
The village is the epitome of Englishness. It is seemingly untouched by time and every eave had house martins and swifts nesting. Every now and then we had to dodge and they came screaming down the streets. It was wonderful!
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| House martin chicks |
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Our first stop was St Cyriac's Church which was a beautiful little church. It was celebrating a flower festival while we were there and the floral displays were stunning (if a little wilted in the heat).
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| St Cyriac's Church |
It had some beautiful medieval artwork preserved in the lady chapel, including this stunning ceiling,
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| Lady chapel ceiling |
It really made me realise how gaudy medieval churches must have been.
The abbey has undergone a lot of changes. Like Cleve, the church has been razed and is now a lawn but the cloister remains relatively intact.
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| Lacock Abbey cloister |
It was really useful to see the two places as it meant I could combine the two in my mind's eye and get a really good idea of what they would have looked like in their heyday. The cloister of Cleve was largely uncovered whereas it was beautifully preserved at Lacock,
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| Cloister |
As with Cleve, Lacock abbey was purchased after the Dissolution of the Monasteries and turned into a private home. It underwent major remodeling and various service buildings were contructed including a brewhouse, which still remains and is thought to be one of the oldest surviving country house breweries.
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| 16th century brewhouse |
The house came into the property of William Fox Talbot in the 19th century and while he's probably not someone you've heard of, you probably should. He was a pioneer of photography and was active at the same time as
Daguerre. He made some of the earliest photographs including
this one, of a bay window in his house. This bay window to be precise,
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| Bay window photographed by Fox Talbot in August 1835. |
Despite it being just a window, it was quite profound to stand and photograph the same sight Fox Talbot had photographed 183 years ago. The convoluted, delicate and precise process he had developed over many years of careful study of chemical reactions and trial and error had been replaced by me pointing my digital camera and pressing a button without any thought and even less understanding of how the image appeared instantaneously on my screen.
The little museum to Fox Talbot described his work and it made me realise just how incredible photography was. It's become so common as to be mundane but it really is amazing. Painting and drawing are approximations of what we see, however photorealistic they are. The process is comprehensible, if highly skilled. But these first photographers thought they could use chemical processes to reproduce a scene without distortion or interpretation and somehow managed to achieve that. Thanks to their work we now have cameras in our phones that allow us to document every aspect of our lives. And I get to do blogposts like this!
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